October 21, 2013

... shall I customise my Learjet so that I can stand upright in it? How can I make it to number one on the rich list? Do I own too many Basquiats and Koonses? Should I go public on my $2bn Gates Foundation donation?

While many deliberate over these conundrums, one overriding issue surpasses all the others: where should I stash my cash and, therefore, where should I live?

In my experience, the truly rich are some of the cheapest people on Earth (that is, they really don't like to pay for things.

But what the truly rich really put up with is people constantly pestering them. With business proposals, or just plain begging. With businesses and service people who intend to gouge them because, after all, they're so rich that the extra taken will be just a rounding error.

And so, the truly rich either spend their time in the company of other truly rich or, when they're not, they "dress down" so as not to appear rich.

Which still does nothing to solve the problem of how to motivate their offspring. For, as they say, "There's no one quite so helpless as the rich man's son."

The article makes light, but there really are serious issues that the rich must confront. Who to trust. Who friends are. How to give effectively. Not falling into the trap of outsourcing important things (all childcare, for example.) And, for the religious rich, trusting and loving God, not money.

The Rich Can Certainly Afford Great Amounts of 'Therapeutic Cuddling' at Sixty Dollars an Hour to Cuddle Those financial Worries Away. They Would be Able to Keep Their Own Private Staff of 'Therapeutic Cuddlers' On Call Twenty-Four/Seven, One on the Jet at All Times, Have Special Rooms For Them at the Mansion, Right Next to the Naughty Rooms With Those Naughty Non-Therapeutic Cuddlers Who Are Also On Call. More than Sixty an Hour For Those, though. Still: Rounding Error.

Marshal said...Freeman Hunt said... If the idea is to send their children to elite colleges, this is not a savvy strategy. Go live somewhere underrepresented at these colleges and acceptance is much more likely.

The truly rich and/or politically connected don't have to worry about admissions. Their children will be admitted on the likelihood their parents or later they will be able to donate generously.

Or as more likely the case. A hefty "fee" in addition to their regular tuition.

The rich should stay here until a Republican is in office. Bush had a far more "fair" economy than Clinton or Obama. I would no longer have issues with antitrust suits, by the truckload, on the robber barons in the tech industry.